Well, it's sort-of romance, really, but it's really an almost perfect mystery, an excellent historical, and a the mixture of genres works really, really well. The story of Julia Gray, the most conventional of the ten March children, and her slow transformation from a repressed and restrained society wife (or, rather, widow) into a self-possessed, stubborn and openly eccentric young woman is nothing short of brilliant. Add to this a great feeling for the moment, which does keep us in the comfortable surroundings of lady Julia Gray's upper-class (very upper-class) life but still doesn't forget the social structure of the time; the simple, matter-of-fact way in which Raybourn deals with issues that many other writers wouldn't dare tackle (including a more or less openly lesbian couple and the question of Roma), and top it all with a hero openly inspired by Heathcliff, but not some romanticised version of him, and you get this little gem of a book. I am officially hooked, and my only regret is that there are only four books in the series so far, so I'll have to wait until later this year for the fifth book to come out. A really, truly wonderful book.